The Purge Film Review

“Blessed be our new founding fathers” is a line repeated in the film trilogy. The story is the same in every movie. You have twelve hours where all crime is legal, including murder. However high ranking government officials are protected. How does this happen you ask? Well, Ill explain it to you. In the movie white supremacist political leaders have gotten into office (*cough* Trump) and have used the 28th amendment and created the “Purge” where all crime is legal from 7pm to 7am. The film explains how crime has dropped significantly since the inception of this ritual. In the first film you have a white family hunkering down to sit out the night. In the beginning of the night a no maned black man (credited as “Bloody Stranger”) comes seeking shelter from a group of Ivy League college looking white neander-thugs who wanted to kill him. The white father turned his down but the hypochondriac white son let him in. They eventually get into a standoff with the Ivy League thugs and the language is very important. They dont refer to Bloody Stranger as a person but as a “Pig”. His death is the key part to them cleansing their souls, which is a direct off shoot of Nordic tradition. In the end White father dies, his family lives, Bloody Stranger also lives and protects white family with his military skills.

The second film is more graphic than the first. It has a revenge story plot. A white fathers’ son was killed by a drunk driver and he was going out to seek his revenge. The sub story features a single mother who takes care of her father and daughter. Her Daughter is about fighting back and listens to a radical radio host that tells how to combat oppression. The mother is weary about combating the ruling class and believes in surviving the night. Eventually she goes to check on the father, he’s elderly and she has to give him his medicine, he’s left a letter that he has sold himself to a wealthy family to help relieve the money issues. It is shown in this film that the wealthy will purchase elderly, homeless and otherwise downtrodden people so they can purge in the safety of their home, eerily similar to the wealthy who throw parties and have and have the “Help” dress as slaves (queue Paula Deen).The two cross paths when the mother daughter duo were taken from their home and about to be executed in the street and he executes the para-militia men and they join him on his way by foot. For the majority of the movie it follows this group who is on foot trying to escape a group of minorities who are kidnapping people to sell to the rich, similar to what I was taught is called the “Butter Biscuit Brigade” which is basically a group of black people turning on other black people (in relation to the movie Puerto Rican) to not be in the white supremacist line of fire. Im sure they are offered very little money and “nigga trinkets” (Rims, Jordan sneakers or expensive clothes) for their cooperation. They are all eventually captured and sold to white people (*cough* transatlantic slave trade). The white people have a hunting ground set up close to the most dangerous game, which is eventually broken up by the resistance, led by bloody stranger from the first film. In the end the main character white man(Frank Grillo) finds the person who kills his son and the Puerto Rican mom is eventually able to appeal to his humanity and stop him from killing.

The third film is a damn near direct play by play of this past presidential election, from the female candidate to the white supremacist spewing verbal trash from his mouth. The movie starts during a presidential debate before the election the youth rally among the female candidate and the old people with the white supremacist. In the third installment we see the angry revenge white man again, this time as the female candidates head of security. In fear that she might actually win the old white supremacist infiltrate her security team and try to assassinate her after a narrow escape from her home they are alone on the streets of purge night. They find brief protection in a bodega owned by a black man and a Latino man works in there. The Black store owner is effected by the current administration because of “Purge Tax” (similar to “Black Tax” of the 1800’s when so called “free” blacks had to pay extra money in certain areas just for existing) The purge tax cost him an extra $1,000 and if he cannot pay his policy is cancelled, which it is and he is at the store that night protecting it with his employee when he see’s the presidential candidate and her security guard surrounded by a group of people dressed as former presidents trying to murder them. In the lastest installment we learn that people travel to america to perform “Murder tourism” and due to the fear of the dominant society that this liberal woman could win they removed the protection of upper government for the night making everyone fair game. We met the people trying to murder the female candidate in the opening scenes of the film they are coming from what I think is South Africa based on their accent and I believe they were speaking Afrikaans . They party have one goal of keeping the female candidate safe, during the night they come across an underground network (underground railroad) of resistance fighters who have an underground map that leads to where the dominant society is hiding out, which is in a church (religion of white supremacy). One of the leaders of the resistance is “Bloody Stranger” who is on a mission to assassinate the male presidential candidate. He is talked down by the female candidate who want to win the election fairly and he ultimately dies during the church ambush and the election takes place and the female candidate wins.

This film series is full of white supremacist overtones. Im sure I missed many, but it is an interesting series worth a watch if you havent. I think that it plays into racial and political tensions that are prevalent today. Over all the film isnt that hard to watch visually, but the mental part is a lot to take in. If you’ve seen it what did you get from it. This could just be me talking crazy and being paranoid and a conspiracy theorist.